Elmar Bijlsma

You are making way too much of it. It's pretty rare that it gets used, sometimes as a fudge stand in for something not include with the game. Or sometimes it is a goofball scenario that is just mean to be a bit of fun and which, as has been mentioned, you aren't forced to play in the first place. Great possibilities for tournament play too. And all that at virtually no extra development cost? Yes please thank you!

I would prefer something built in to the game properly. I'm not so hot on all the Toolbars being pushed on me left, right and centre. Not even BFC's.

There is no possibility of anything Cesspoolish ever being acceptable. And as this one is made outside that wretched arena it is per definition out of bounds. BAN HIM! BAN HIM! BAN HIM!

Uhm, the Hürtgenwald battles did not take place in August and are well outside the scope of the summer fighting portrayed in CMN. AFAIK there was only limited contact with the Siegfried Line initially, the Allies lacking the supplies and weight up front to do anything serious.

Oh come now. He, like I, came in here to laugh and point at Elvis. Surely occupants of the Pang Chellange (or whatever Elvis will spell it as next) will find this entirely understandable? It is the natural state of the world that people will turn up in numbers to point and laugh at the wretch.

Jaws, I think you'll find the Dutch gun laws not as restrictive as you might think. You can get your hands on pretty much any gun you like. But it will take time and effort to get the required permits. And it's a costly hobby. If you are interested you should make enquiries at a local gunclub. Make sure you pick a club that suits your shooting needs. If you are looking to fire rifles or blackpowder, find a club with the lanes fit for your shooting needs.

I've always thought a 1:285 (GHQ) mini could be good swag. And GHQ ought to be willing to do a good deal if they get to slip in a leaflet or somefink.

I'm pretty sure Moon would not be wiling to concede that he's practising one shot economics. I reckon BFC have always been seeding to an extent. It's just not the main focus for a very good reason: Focussing on short term benefits comes naturally if you need those to pay bills. There is no point to seeding if you can't afford to make that next game and are jobbing on a construction site because the missus doesn't think much of a cardboard box for a home. And I'm still not sure if seeding as a primary focus is feasible. At some point you do need that x10 increase in sales. If it's in the next product or the one after that is still a wildly optimistic. And guess what, if your third game finally does sell 10x more then the first, you have only broken even on that first. You'd pretty much need a pyramid scheme type growth to finally start compensating for the low pricepoint. You'd need your game to go epically viral in the mass market. And that is a VERY unsafe business model to rely on.

I think it does sorta make sense for the small indie games and stuff like Peggle or Bejeweled which do not have crazy amounts of development time to recoup in the first place and can have a broad appeal if they can get reach. Especially if it gets big on Faecesbook or whatever. But even the big AAA games can't do it, I think. They need several million sales to make a profit these days, and that's at $50! There just aren't tens of millions of extra customers out there. To pull off anything remotely what that article is talking about you'd need a Free to Play business model. That'd work. But CM is the wrong type of game for that. He has some hints of nice ideas but he's wrong to jumble them all together and think that they remain valid. Some of his stuff is mutually exclusive. For instance the volume of sales required for a $5 game pretty much prevents any kinda of meaningful engagement by the developer with the customer. And what good is that long term relationship anyway, if the basis is the developer selling the game at practically cost. By and large I'd say what he is proposing is taken to extremes and unrealistic. As for MickeyD's captive audience suggestion: Only up to a point. I don't think there would be a great drop in sales if CMN went for $60 instead of say $45. Certainly not in the wargaming side of things, though the more casual sales would take a noticable hit, I guess. But there is a fine line. The moment customers think you are taking the piss, the result is dramatic. As mentioned Panther games got trodden on in all the forums. I don't know how that worked out financially but it wasn't pretty to watch, that's for sure. BFC has always gone for a fair price, imho. If they had always taken us for the full wack $60,- I guess that would have made them more money initially but cost them brand loyalty long term. Extract every last penny out of the customer and you don't get forgiven for stuff like CMSF's initial release or whatever odd bug is encountered in CMN. In that extent the article is (partially) right. But dropping the price as far as the author suggest doesn't give a proportional increase in loyalty that can be turned back in to coin later.

Are you sure it is not Russia?

Nah. Will never work. Wargames are a very small market in the first place. Dropping the price is unlikely to translate in very much more sales as damn near everyone in this hobby is already considering a purchase. Especially at that $5 price you will never get the increased sales. I'm not sure they'd even make back the cost of sales. Actually, I think such a low price might just damage the product as it will make it appear as a sub-par game. As for DRM, as long as it's effective and stays mostly out of my way I'd rather have it then go without. I really wouldn't want to feel like a sucker for buying. And the price of admission makes a good bouncer for ye random l33t knobheads. Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid for a consumer to say; "Charge me money, lots of it, and throw some DRM on that!" But I'd rather do that then have my wargaming needs go un-catered for altogether.

This has always been the case.

You were surprised? I'll go you one better. I was reading RPS (not a sign of the article) came directly to this forum afterwards and right away saw the thread about CMN being featured on RPS. Had me go "wut?" at myself. Liked the dead cow bit. Funny how stuff like that gets attention. We are a strange bunch.

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart "...losing his left hand in 1915, biting off his fingers when a doctor declined to remove them." Win!

Hmmmm, perhaps I should complain the uniforms are too green now? Looking good!

Rifle grenade launchers have been specifically mentioned in the equipment page of the CMN website.

Ah, thanks for that. I got my threads mixed up. That was the one I had in mind when I posted my link.

I'll tackle the random map question first. The current terrain is too detailed for a randomly generated map to come out good. There are plans to get something together using pre-made tiles to make random maps, much like the maps of X-COM. But I wouldn't expect that to happen any time soon. Definitely not for this game. Campaigns... erm... if I so much as mention them again I will receive abuse. So I won't. Most recent discussion along those lines: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=94794 Long and the short of it: Nothing major any time soon, and things aren't looking great on the long term neither.

And after reading this very thread that contains the reason for that, did you remain shocked? I'm a bit surprised that the French resistance keeps getting requested. They weren't exactly having very many pitched battles with the Wehrmacht.

I don't even like waffles. Go figure.

Ah, I see it now. Right you are. Sorry about the misunderstanding on that score, Steve.

I was commenting on the part I had bolded which sure looks like a threat to ban me. As for my "pay attention to me or I'll leave behaviour", I voiced my dissatisfaction with a certain aspect of the game (and also my hope it will get better) and was challenged on why I was even here by YD. I answered that question as a reasonable person and it doesn't suit you or this discussion to try and twist it in to anything else.

lolwut? Keep that attitude up and kicking me off the forum is not a very great threat at all.

That campaign was bloody great fun for many of us. Those bothered by historical accuracy could try adhering to such self imposed limitations instead of pissing vinegar in to other peoples w(h)inecup. As to the sense or nonsense of customers bringing this topic up continually: this is still a discussion forum, not a cheerleading group? Trying to shut down the discussion with a "the great BFC have spoken" is neither here nor there in regards to customer desire for this feature. Yes there are a great many other features on the BFC's "to do" lists. But that list is so ginormous that people are understandably trying to boost their particular wishlist.

I'm currently still here because I too dig the depth of the combat simulation. It's the rest of the game I'm not enamoured with. Hence I continue to voice my hopes that this area will be improved and hence I voice my dissatisfaction with the current pace of progress. But yeah, since you ask, if BFC continue with this slow pace in this regard I'll not be their customer for very much longer. My point is more in the making of the campaign instead of it's coding. Steve's objection to the operations focus on that it takes too much time to code to get right. But the great effort getting the campaign out the door causes great delays. The clear advantages of campaigns aren't that clear to me.